BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Alina Ibragimova & Huw Watkins
With Julia Fischer having been ill and unable to prepare for the advertised and attractive bill of Grieg and Tchaikovsky (with conductor Yakov Kreizberg at the piano), Alina Ibragimova and...
Beethoven 1 & Das Lied von der Erde
Two very contrasted symphonies composed 110 years apart, either of which would put any self-respecting conductor and orchestra on their mettle.In September next year Donald Runnicles takes up the post...
Wayne Marshall Organ Recital
I may be wrong, in which case I apologise in advance, but I believe this was the first solo organ recital ever given in a Proms season. If it was,...
Stockhausen Day – 2: Stimmung
Stimmung is for six amplified singers and is truly a 'one-off' not onlyin Stockhausen's output but also in the context of Western European music.The technique of 'overtone' singing is one...
Stockhausen Day – 1: Gruppen … Kontakte…
Karlheinz Stockhausen would have turned 80 on 22 August this year. One assumes that this “Stockhausen Day” was planned to celebrate the occasion, perhaps with the composer being present? In...
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Graven Image
Since I last heard the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Vasily Petrenko (on home ground), this completely different programme confirmed the good things that have been said about this pairing: that...
The Coronation of Poppea
In a packed, hot and stuffy Royal Albert Hall Glyndebourne Festival Opera made its annual Proms appearance, this year with Robert Carsen’s production of “The Coronation of Poppea”.Stripped of Michael...
World Music Celebration
Mayra AndradeWinner of the Newcomer Award, Mayra Andrade was the first artist of the roster and gave a confident and self-assured set, performing songs which appear on her album, “Navega”,...
Hallé – A Shropshire Lad … Till Eulenspiegel
A quintessential Barbirolli programme (indeed Vaughan Williams dedicated his Eighth Symphony to the Hallé’s illustrious former Chief, "for Glorious John ... with love and admiration") from Sir Mark Elder who...
Beethoven & Elliott Carter
Beethoven’s Fifth was clipped and swift, short on thrills and starved of momentous expanse. It was a curious performance, sometimes muddy-sounding, sometimes over-felicitous in detail (there was no doubting Beethoven’s...
Monteverdi/I Fagiolini
We heard exemplary performances of three texts by Ottavio Rinuccini. The first exhorted Ferdinand "King of the Roman Empire" to join with the sun in bringing peace to the realm,...
La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ
The celebration of Olivier Messiaen’s centenary continued with one of his most spectacular works, “La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ”. Composed between 1965 and 1969 to a Latin text compiled...
Doctor Who Prom
With a pulse from a borrowed sonic screwdriver, Roger Wright – Director of the BBC Proms – seems to have transformed the annual children (or in this case definitely family)...
John Tomlinson, Louis Lortie & Thomas Adès
An interesting mix of Russian favourites together with a piece by the conductor. The evening opened with the choral version of Mussorgsky’s Night on the Bare Mountain, the City of...
Troubled Light … Pictures at an Exhibition
I once struck up a conversation with a fellow traveller on a train journey. It turned out that he was a composition pupil of Simon Holt. I recall him telling...
Skip to content